Occupational Hazards and Diseases Related to the Practice of Anesthesiology

Semi-quantitative risk assessment for workers exposed to occupational harmful agents in an oilfield in Iran

BACKGROUND

Workers are exposed to occupational health hazards from physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, and psychological agents. Assessing occupational health risks is vital for executing control measures to protect employees' health against harmful occupational agents.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aimed to identify, evaluate, and prioritize occupational health risks to assist senior management in determining where to allocate the budget to carry out the required corrective actions in the oilfields project.

METHODS

This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was performed in 2021 among Iran's Sarvak Azar oil field job groups. The occupational health risk was assessed using the Harmful Agents Risk Priority Index (HARPI) as a semi-quantitative method. Then, to simplify decision-making and budget allocation, we reported HARPI final score in the Pareto principle format.

RESULTS

The results show that in this oil field, controlling exposure to adverse lighting, improving the thermal conditions and ergonomics, and preventing noise exposure has the highest priority, with scores of 6342, 5269, 5629, and 5050, respectively. Production, HSE, laboratory, and commissioning need the most health care measures with scores of 8683, 5815, 5394, and 4060, respectively.

CONCLUSION

HARPI could be used to prioritize occupational health hazards, and this method can simplify managers' decisions to allocate resources to implement control measures.

A methodology for the technical-economic analysis of municipal solid waste systems based on social cost-benefit analysis with a valuation of externalities

Countries face a serious problem due to the generation and management of higher volumes of waste. Large-scale production of waste has promoted the establishment of various operations (collection, transport, treatment and disposal) for its management. When a MSW management system is implemented, it can generate different impacts or consequences (internal or external impacts). Generally, external impacts (social and environmental impacts) are not reflected in MSW economic analysis or taken into consideration in decision-making processes in regard to MSW management options. For this reason, the objective of this paper is present a methodology with which is viable to conduct the technical-economic analysis of municipal solid waste management projects based on social cost-benefit analysis (sCBA) as it considers internal and external impacts. Its main objectives are to determine the total benefits (the difference between revenues and costs) generated by a project and to reduce uncertainty and risk of investing in particular MSW management system. Finally, a case study was carried out to verify the validity of the methodology through analysis and valuation of different impacts of a light packaging waste and bulky waste facility. Through the application of the methodology, it has been possible to visualize that this facility is viable operationally (B_P = 42.94 €/ton) as economically (B_T = 87.73 €/ton).